If the saying, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” is true, then I certainly must thank the Tribune for its uniformly hostile, generally inaccurate reporting on the Term Limits & Tax Limits Party and my brief exploratory candidacy for governor at the top of its ticket. We obviously hit a raw nerve suggesting Illinoisans deserve at least one viable party that is not run by and for liberal career politicians.
The very day we filed our party petitions (Aug. 8), the Tribune timed a headline to imply, falsely, that I had triggered a federal audit of the United Republican Fund (URF) for the period 1991-92-though I’d left as its executive director in December 1989. As of February 1991, URF’s president was Denis J. Healy and its executive director was Richard C. Rue.
The same story cited 16 “little-known bank accounts” tied to URF. Writer Rick Pearson conveniently left unclear that the accounts were required by campaign finance law in the dozen states in which URF supported GOP candidates in 1988. The accounts, in other words, were evidence not of shady dealings, but of our compliance with the law.
Pearson also said the “fund signed an order with the Illinois State Board of Elections admitting `substantial errors and inaccuracies’ on campaign statements.” He failed to disclose the signature was that of Jill Horist, wife of current executive director Larry Horist, who was noisily opposing my potential candidacy. Essentially, the Horists confessed to dubious disclosure charges regarding an officer who served under me, then apparently leaked their confession as “proof” of problems on my watch.
The creative journalism continued in an Aug. 28 column by Tom Hardy, who never troubled to interview the subject of his wild claims. One concerned URF’s financial condition at my departure. The facts: URF had $60,000 of current payables against an annual revenue base of $600,000 to $800,000. Under staffers Rue and Horist, URF’s revenues collapsed while its debt has ballooned to around $250,000.
Hardy expressed shock-shock!-that I made light of Elvis Presley’s name showing up on our petitions. Systemic petition fraud is indeed a serious charge, but celebrity signatures planted by wise guys or political opponents are as common in politics as typos in the Tribune. Our forces gathered 43,000 signatures in three weeks. While no doubt we had a typical share of unregistered voters, Jim Edgar now knows we had well over the required 25,000 registered voters. Contrary to the implications of the Tribune’s Sept. 3 story on my decision against formally entering the race, we terminated our defense of the petitions because we could not afford another $100,000 and three weeks to try vindicating all of the petitioners.
Finally, Hardy demonstrated his amazing ESP powers by looking deep into my soul to see I had no real interest in running for governor. Instead, I was only out to “get some yuks” by, among other things, dressing my wife in a pig snout and parading her around in some gross form of political wife abuse. Sorry, Tom, but my wife has never donned a pig snout. But it should be clear by now that I believe enough in term limits, tax limits, traditional values and real electoral choices that I remain willing, at considerable personal expense, to take political dives into the filthiest kind of porcine swill-an ungentle metaphor for the careless, style-over-substance coverage that often passes for political journalism at a once-great newspaper.
